The Science Delusion, a talk banned by TED

[Hermit]

Thanks. That clears it up. Having slept for only three hours between tonight and early yesterday morning, I'm too tired to review your earlier posts in order to quote the bits that gave me the impression that you were fudging the boundaries between science (empiricism) and metaphysics.

Fuck. Looks like you have after all.

[FBM]

OK, Hermit. Have it your way.

[pErvinalia]

...and science is shit at explaining reality (because it's not what it's designed to do).

Actually, we have no way of knowing whether it is shit or good. And we have no way of knowing if there are any other ways of accessing reality. Reality is really an extraneous oddity. It's kind of pointless wondering about it if we will struggle to ever discover the truth of it. And of course science doesn't wonder about it at all. Science may very well describe the true reality of the world, but it's not really bothered if it does or not.

Sure, but maybe so can Harry Potter. If we have no reason to think it's an accurate description of reality then I think it's doing a shit job of explaining it.

That doesn't make sense. How can we judge something that doesn't make an attempt at describing reality as being shit at attempting to describe reality?

So my point still stands. And you know this - science doesn't attempt to explain reality.

[pErvinalia]

FIGHT FIGJHT FIGJT!!!

[Hermit]

Was I being aggressive or unfriendly, or are you just turfing this discussion in the too hard basket?

[Hermit]

FIGHT FIGJHT FIGJT!!!

You're durnk-typing, rEV. Go to bed. Take a glass of water with you. You'll need it in a few hours.

[pErvinalia]

As for my negativity about metaphysics, I see no benefits in it at all. The quackery is only useful for hitting the plebs over the head with. That's why it is particularly popular with religious leaders, demagogues and anyone else out to control and exploit the masses. For that reason I mentioned fraud a couple of times, and I thought I was understating the harmfulness with that word.

But surely the fact that it can be misused doesn't mean it's a flawed method in itself? Some people are interested in asking questions about reality, I don't see how that's a bad thing.

A method for what? A method for finding something out about "things in themselves"? Give me an example about a particular "thing in itself", how "metaphysical enquiry" can be applied to it and what, if anything useful at all might result from that. Be sure not to slip in anything empirical.

yeah, this is the position I'm coming to as well. I don't see what it adds that regular run of the mill logic doesn't already handle. That is, it says nothing about reality at all; only whether an argument involving the subject of "reality" is logically sound or shit.

[pErvinalia]

Not sure why metaphysics gets such a bad rap:

Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3]
What is ultimately there?
What is it like?
The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the origin, fundamental structure, nature, and dynamics of the universe. Some include Epistemology as another central focus of metaphysics but this can be questioned.
Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" (Latin scientia) simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.[6] Some philosophers of science, such as the neo-positivists, say that natural science rejects the study of metaphysics, while other philosophers of science strongly disagree.

Etymology[edit]
The word "metaphysics" derives from the Greek words μετά (metá, "beyond", "upon" or "after") and φυσικά (physiká, "physics").[7] It was first used as the title for several of Aristotle's works, because they were usually anthologized after the works on physics in complete editions. The prefix meta- ("beyond") indicates that these works come "after" the chapters on physics. However, Aristotle himself did not call the subject of these books "Metaphysics": he referred to it as "first philosophy." The editor of Aristotle's works, Andronicus of Rhodes, is thought to have placed the books on first philosophy right after another work, Physics, and called them τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ βιβλία (ta meta ta physika biblia) or "the books that come after the [books on] physics". This was misread by Latin scholiasts, who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical"....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

Seems to me that natural science has been driven by the desire to know "What is there?" and "What is it like?" instead of just manipulating stuff for practical purposes. Much of physics is very enthusiastic ontology and cosmology.

But the real question is: what can it tell us? As far as I can tell, it doesn't tell us anything other than whether an argument is logically sound or shit.

[pErvinalia]

FIGHT FIGJHT FIGJT!!!

You're durnk-typing, rEV. Go to bed. Take a glass of water with you. You'll need it in a few hours.

I'm actually not drunk. Just typing challenged by the excitement of an impending barney! (Oh, and you try typing fight three times really fast in all caps without the caps lock on. It's bloody hard, man!).

[FBM]

Was I being aggressive or unfriendly, or are you just turfing this discussion in the too hard basket?

Assuming that you're talking to me, I'm tossing it in the "It's a waste of time to debate with an aggressive, unfriendly person who had already steadfastly closed his mind on the topic." It's none of my business what goes on inside your head, nor do I feel it my duty to educate you as to what the field of metaphysics means to academics, rather than wingnuts, with whom you seem to errantly associate it. Physics is the pursuit of knowledge of what is ultimately real, not just what works. Wtf.

[FBM]

But the real question is: what can it tell us? As far as I can tell, it doesn't tell us anything other than whether an argument is logically sound or shit.

I hope you're taking the piss here. Metaphysics is about the conclusions we must logically infer from physics and the other sciences. Physicists do metaphysics when they do cosmology and ontology. Wtf.

[pErvinalia]

But the real question is: what can it tell us? As far as I can tell, it doesn't tell us anything other than whether an argument is logically sound or shit.

I hope you're taking the piss here. Metaphysics is about the conclusions we must logically infer from physics and the other sciences. Physicists do metaphysics when they do cosmology and ontology. Wtf.

But the claim is that it tells us something about reality (or perhaps 'claims about reality'). I want to know what this is? I want to know what gives metaphysics special status among regular run of the mill logic. What's it telling me that I couldn't already work out with logic? And what does "reality" have to do with any of it?

[pErvinalia]

As I asked Samsa earlier, give me an example of metaphysics telling me something about the ultimate reality of the world. He gave me parsimony and pragmatism, but they say nothing about "reality" at all. He gave me another one, which I haven't looked at yet, but given the first two examples, I'm not holding out hope for the last one.

[Hermit]

OK. I thought I was expressing myself forthrightly rather than aggressively and unfriendly, and I was actually looking forward to having my point of view tested. If it fell apart it wouldn't have been the first time that someone has convinced me of my errors, nor was it likely to have been the last, but, :shrug: , so be it.

[pErvinalia]

Physics is the pursuit of knowledge of what is ultimately real, not just what works. Wtf.

Is this a mispelling, or are you talking the piss out of Hermit. Physics absolutely says nothing about what is ultimately real.